Chinese telecom gear maker ZTE, after conducting pre-5G trials with India’s top telcos such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Reliance Jio, is going to target tier iii, iv and rural markets with their entry-level smartphones to stabilize their position in India.

Based out of Shenzhen, the company, which currently has a line-up of seven phones, will pump-in more money into marketing in the coming year and open exclusive stores as well. ZTE also aims to widen its presence PAN-India, reports ET.

The company plans to go offline very slowly which is a go-ahead strategy for 2017 in India. They have more than 300 service centres across India and isn’t planning to open exclusive stores as of now.

Sachin Batra, CMO, Head Sales & Marketing at ZTE Smartphones India, said, “Considering the price sensitiveness of the average Indian consumer, they plan to take their Blade range of smartphones and target people in tier ii, iii and rural areas who are going to buy their first smartphones.”

According to Batra, there is a large chunk of customers who are still on feature phones. He also believed that around 50 per cent of the market is in these smaller towns. And once there is a product at a right price point, then the company will start gaining the share automatically.

Users in smaller towns want bigger battery capacity, a good unibody design, and even fingerprints. The company claims to give all these features in their smartphones under Rs 10,000.

ZTE is currently in talks with Indian telecom operators on 5G backhaul, and it is also testing its 5G-ready products with Airtel and BSNL.

Chines smartphone major Xiaomi is also bullish on the Indian internet market where it has emerged as the frontrunner in the smartphone space. Besides, it is going to redefine the Indian market with a steep revenue of $2 billion it plans to generate this year, twice the amount from 2016.